Saturday, May 22, 2010

BP SHOULD SUFFER A CORPORATE DEATH SENTENCE, ASSETS SEIZED AND ALL BUSINESS ACTIVITY IN THE UNITYED STATES STOPPED. THE CORPORATE VEIL MUST BE LIFTED SHAREHOLDERS STRIPPED OF THEIR ASSET AND EMPLOYEES DISCHARGED…TO START

Just how much harm will we allow to our society be for we act?

……US should re-invoke the 'death penalty' for corporations by breaking up those negligent companies and selling off their interests.[3]

Why do we object to the punishment of corporations? What “Bill of Goods” have we been collectively sold/

Some say 1. The innocent will suffer? 2. Employees will be laid off. [5]

If corporations want the same rights as people, their 'limited liability' should no longer apply. It's a position that makes sense, especially considering the way the financial, energy and health care industries have operated with impunity over the past several years. Is there any real force to this idea, though?[3]

CORPORATE RISK MANAGERS SAY. But in the aftermath of this tragedy, two important questions will emerge. They will be directed toward the management and board of directors of your organization. Employees, the media and the public will inevitably get around to asking:
"Did you take reasonable precautions to prevent a critical incident such as this from occurring, which could take a terrible toll on your work force?"
"Were you prepared to respond with proper protective and palliative actions for your people following a critical incident like this?"
The answers you are able to give could have enormous consequences for your company, its bottom line, and its future, because of an emerging concept of liability: Negligent failure to plan.[4]

For the past year, concern with terrorism has dominated public discourse in the United States. Our sense of security has been badly shaken, while politicians and the mass media have missed no opportunity to remind us of our vulnerability. This single-minded focus is distracting us from a major threat to our quality of life and our peace of mind. We should turn our attention to the corporate terrorism in our midst, name it, analyze it, and discuss what we can do about it.[2]

Why are the paradigms of deterrence and efficiency for punishing individual for harmful corporate acts not applied to the corporations themselves? Why do we punish the corporate offices and not the corporation?

“Money often costs too much.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson
There is no other way to frame it. In the battle for democracy the corporatists are winning. Under the 14th amendment, they believe the corporate 'person' shall not be discriminated against and should receive equal protection under the law. [3]

Wal-Mart has argued this corporate position as it insinuates its 'always low prices' and 'always low wages' into inner-city neighborhoods. The legal fiction of corporate personhood has allowed entities that never die and possess incredible resources to assert their own political will on almost every aspect of American life. [3]

The US Supreme Court has all but handed the rights of individuals over to multinational conglomerates. But with freedom comes responsibility, or so it does with human beings. [3]

Within the same month, neglect on the part of two major corporations, Massey Energy and British Petroleum (BP), have caused the deaths of 4o people. If a 'natural person' were responsible for these atrocities, our government would have them in chains awaiting a trial that might lead to their execution. So why don't we treat the corporate 'person' the same way? As progressive radio personality, Thom Hartmann, puts it: It's time to bring back the corporate death penalty.[3]

WHAT IS CORPORATE TERRORISM, CAN IT BE BY NEGLIGENCE?

1.Corporate terrorism are crimes committed to create more consumers. Such as fraud, the spread of misleading propaganda, and bribing politicians to pass bills that force people into become consumers. 2. A terrorist action that creates widespread panic, and nervousness and results in the loss of rights and/or monies. 3. Corp-terrorist~ VERY extreme capitalist who resorts to violence, or fear mongering to spread panic in everyday citizens in order to coerce them onto their side or to buy something to make themselves feel safe. Corporate terrorism is America’s most active terrorist movements. It is also the least prosecuted.[1]

President Barack Obama pretty much stated the obvious when he called the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico "a massive and potentially unprecedented environmental disaster."[3]

The oil well pouring a river of crude into the Gulf of Mexico didn't have the normal type of remote-control shut-off switch used in Norway and the UK as last-resort protection against underwater spills, largely because the oil companies themselves are responsible for "voluntary" compliance with safety and environmental standards.[3]

It was in 1994, two years into the Clinton administration, when this practice of putting the fox in charge of the henhouse was legalized, about the same time George W. Bush was doing the same thing in Texas, a program pushed hard in the previous administration by Dan Quayle's so-called "competitiveness council" charged with deregulating industry. [3]

The accident has led to one of the largest ever oil spills in U.S. water and the loss of 11 lives. Voluntary safety for oil wells, but you and I can get stopped by the police if we don't fasten our safety belts? Eleven people have died because Halliburton and BP wanted to save money. In the first hundred years of this republic it was commonplace for rogue corporations to get the corporate death penalty - being shut down, dissolved, and having their assets sold off. Through the 19th century, it averaged around 2000 companies a year that got the axe. If the Supreme Court now says that corporations are people - and they did - then these corporations should be eligible for the corporate death penalty. Time to break up and sell off the pieces of Halliburton and British Petroleum.[3]

Currently, the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico is dumping 5,000 barrels of crude oil per day. The slick is quickly approaching the Gulf Coast and residents are preparing for an ecological disaster. Eleven workers are dead after an explosion that some believe could have been avoided. A simple mechanism could have been installed, but in the name of profit, safety again took a back seat. It might not have saved the workers' lives, but it could have thwarted the oncoming environmental onslaught. [3]

According to the Wall Street Journal:
The U.S. considered requiring a remote-controlled shut-off mechanism several years ago, but drilling companies questioned its cost and effectiveness, according to the agency overseeing offshore drilling. The agency, the Interior Department's Minerals Management Service, says it decided the remote device wasn't needed because rigs had other back-up plans to cut off a well.
An acoustic trigger costs about $500,000, industry officials said. The Deepwater Horizon had a replacement cost of about $560 million, and BP says it is spending $6 million a day to battle the oil spill. On Wednesday, crews set fire to part of the oil spill in an attempt to limit environmental damage.[3]

This is a classic example of American big business at work. The perpetual quest for short-term profit clouds the better judgment of management. Simply put, if it's not an immediate problem, why worry about it? If it blows up in our face, we'll pay a fine and move on. [3]

It appears that the larger a corporation gets, the more it takes on a casino style mentality, playing the odds with the house money because business has been so good for so long, why would it stop now? BP's spill is rare in oil drilling, but might have been avoided by spending as little as 0.01% of their profit margin on an additional safety measure. But the mindset is that it doesn't matter that the acoustic trigger is law in Brazil and Norway, if we don't have to use it, we won't. [3]

Keep in mind, this attitude didn't appear out of nowhere. It was developed over many years by the fantasy of nigh-limitless profits, lax government regulation and nominal fines that barely amount to a slap on the wrist. [3]

BP is, of course, unhappy it has to clean up what may be hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil. However, the market will correct the problem when crude oil jumps $15 or $20 per barrel. The increase in price will help BP recover its losses. [3]

When the stock price of BP plummets, it will present as a golden opportunity for investors to buy a load of cheap stock that will only increase in value once BP is back pumping oil instead of cleaning hundreds of miles of shoreline. The oil giant will simply write off its clean-up losses and live to fight - and pollute - another day. And don't worry about civil damages.[3]

BP's total liability is limited to $75 million thanks to a 1990 law passed when Big Oil lobbied our Congress immediately after the Exxon Valdez spill.[3]

So why is it so unlikely that either of these companies will be found criminally negligent, resulting in the imprisonment of any or all of its officers? Because, contrary to the popular TEA Party belief that big government controls our lives, it is actually the corporate candy of cheap goods and cheap energy that the American people can't live without. Most of us have no idea how to even begin thinking of a world that doesn't revolve around billions of barrels of oil or miles of processed coal. Big Energy knows it has us and our government wrapped around its greasy finger. Year after year our leaders pay lip service to the idea of a new way, a green energy future. [3]

But so little has come of it, thus far. It takes catastrophes like these to remind us that the energy business is dirty in so many ways. We can rely on fossil fuels as long as we're willing to pay the consequences; death, dismemberment, environmental disasters, terrorism, unstable nuclear states, all in the name of getting what we think we need. [3]

Hartmann's call to reinstate the corporate death penalty, actually holding big business responsible for its actions, is novel and admirable. In a world where money controls a government and its people, however, its only a pipe dream. Unless we decide that enough is enough, we're left to sit around and wait for the next fossil fuel debacle over and over again.[3]

The corporation is rightly held to be liable for what these corporate officers Have done. If not we should throw out the theories of vicarious liability.

These collection of thoughts posted by
Terry Bankert
http://attorneybankert.com